Valyrie, the Exiled
by Topaz Ingenious
Summary: Taken from the life she once knew, Valyrie only has her wits and her spirit to battle the harsh Exiled Lands, in an effort to try and escape. But she ends up with far more than she could’ve anticipated. Will the Exiled Lands be the end of her before she has a chance for freedom?
1. Chapter One: Exiled

In the middle of nowhere, among a sea of sand with famished vultures circling above, awaiting their next meal, lies a woman nailed to a corpse tree. Waiting for death. She is past the hope of rescue. She doesn't know what day it is. How long she's been here. The only thing on her mind is how painful the nails in her wrists are. How starved for sustenance she is. Her body is weak from hunger and her throat is dryer than the desert itself.

She has screamed for help, and now her voice has gone hoarse. She endures the chill of night and the heat of day. She endures the fear of vultures circling above. Her body rattled and scarred. Bleeding out on the floor with bones beneath her cross. She sees her blood isn't the first to stain the dead.

Her fighting spirit is diminished, and all she has is the hope that she'll die someday. When, she doesn't know. But she knows she will. She prays for soon. Prays to any god out there that her pain will end. And yet, she is abandoned. Accompanied only by the void of the endless sands and the birds high above.

Her body weak from restlessness, and her gaze constantly fixed on the skulls below her. Curious when hers will be added to that pile.

Then she has her first visitor in a long time. A vulture. Valyrie feels the pecking at her neck. Testing to see if she's still alive. Valyrie doesn't move, even if she feels the pain. She winces as the vulture continues to peck at her battered flesh, and before it lunges to strike, something else strikes first. The corpse tree rattles as she turns her head to look at the axe imbedded into the cross. The vulture is pinned to the cross as feathers flutter about.

Valyrie watches the bird pose motionlessly against the tree, frightened. But filled with glee at the prospect that her end is near. She looks down at her trail of blood and sees a man walking towards her. Long flowing hair. His body strong like a rock. And eyes with a piercing gaze, cutting through her. He gets closer to her and grunts, "Another one."

Valyrie isn't sure what he means, but she manages to mutter a single word. Croaking out her first word in days. "Kill."

The man shakes his head, denying release. "Where I'm from, we let others die in the battlefield. Not strung up on a tree."

Valyrie is filled with grief. Her face winces as she struggles to voice another word. "Please."

Her chapped lips form the words she can't speak, and the man walks closer to her as he places his hands on the cross. "You people are soft. You should learn to survive."

He grunts as he pushes the cross down onto the ground, and Valyrie inaudibly welps from the impact. She then sees the man kneel down and place his hands around the nails in her wrist. She then feels a chill down her spine at what she's about to feel. She prepares herself, but even still, it hurts all the same. Her body convulses as she screams through the pain. She grits her teeth and it feels like hours before the nails are removed.

She wonders why the man is letting her free, even if he explained why. The man takes his axe back and then he tosses something to her side and she looks at it, unfamiliar with it. She looks inside and sees water. She chugs it down without thinking twice. She drinks all she can before the man takes it back. "These lands are dangerous. Unforgiving." The man puts the waterskin back on his belt and continues. "But I'm the only one that'll save you."

He starts to walk off but turns around and remarks. "Perhaps I should've kept you on that tree."

The woman is still on her side, contemplating the life she had before. Weak. Beaten. The man walks closer to her again and proclaims, "Live. Love. Burn with life. Slay, and survive. Don't be like those savages."

The woman looks up at the man as he begins to walk away as he says his parting words, "Welcome to the Exiled Lands."

Then a wall of sand comes over the horizon, engulfing the mysterious man, but she can see his figure still moving in the distance. But to her dismay, the storm is getting closer to her. The sand starts bombarding her and she cries in pain. She looks around for shelter. Anything. Anywhere.

The storm gets closer and closer, and her body is battered with fast moving wind and sand. Branches scratching her body. Sand seeping into dry wounds. She sees a giant structure in the distance, and she races to the best of her ability towards it. Her legs are weak, and her body can't take anymore. The storm finally engulfs her and sand begins to attack her without rest. She trudges through the sand, trying with all she has to find shelter, but it's not enough. She falls to her knees and screams in utmost agony, waiting for it to end. Waiting for death. Sand then begins to fill her ears. Filling opened wounds by the storm. She closes her eyes and waits for the end.

She then finds herself still alive after what feels like hours. Her body weaker than before. Her muscles fatigued. Her eyes heavy. Feeling like she could die at any moment. Why she hasn't, is beyond her. She then opens her eyes to see a green, energy wall and a giant structure ahead. The one she tried to escape to. Something tells her to stay away from the wall, and something else tells her to go to it. She then remembers what the man said. _To survive_. And one other thing that frightens her still. _Welcome to the Exiled Lands._

Why she's here, is unknown. She only knows of a life before this one. And why she couldn't be there anymore. Why she's forced to endure this pain. _What am I supposed to do_? She thinks. Only one thing comes to mind. Igniting enough of her fighting spirit to stand and fight. _To survive_.

(B)

Note from Author: Apologies for the gap in uploads. I was burnt out on Batman and needed something else to get back into the groove into things. I've been sinking a ton of time in Conan Exiles. Follow my Twitter


	2. Chapter Two: Survive

Off and on, Valyrie trudges along on her feet, wandering aimlessly across the empty expanse of the desert until she stumbles upon a path. Slabs of rock imbedded into the sand and near it, rests a big tablet in the ground. Curious, she walks closer to it and she slowly places her hand on the tablet, jumping back as she hears a voice. But she doesn't know where.

"Behold, bonded one. The very boundaries of civilization."

She looks at it curiously as it continues to speak. "Beyond the passage of our highways lie the wild places of the world where untamed savages make endless war upon each other."

At those words, Valyrie is unnerved. Worried what she'll find. But she doesn't have many other options. The tablet continues to speak. "You cannot pass into the endless wastes, Enslaved. Your bonding prevents it."

She turns around to look back at the green wall she saw before, and the giant structure she tried to hide behind. Trapped.. The tablet finishes, "Return. Follow the road. Any road. All roads lead to the city."

She looks down at the slabs of rock on the ground, and hesitates before she makes her first steps back to civilization. One of savagery.

Her throat is drying up and her stomach is collapsing in on itself. Her body weak and she doesn't think she'll make it much longer if she doesn't find something soon. To her amazement, she finds bushes in the desert. She looks in to see if there are any berries, or anything at all. She then feels something crawling on her arm and she looks down to see insects. She instinctively jumps back, wiping them off. Her stomach rumbles again and she realizes she's going to have to resort to drastic measures. Oh God…

She reaches back in the bush and winces as she feels more insects crawl on her hand. She hesitantly picks one up and looks at it as it wiggles around in her fingers. It's tiny legs moving erratically. Valyrie swallows hard and readies herself as she slowly leans in to take a bite out of the unfortunate critter, closing her eyes hard.

When she bites down, repulsion rushes through her and the critter's crunchy and unpleasant flesh splashes in her mouth. She falls to her knees and tosses the insect away, heaving on the ground. Her eyes start to water and she feels like she'd vomit if she had anything to begin with. She grips the sand with her fists as the repulsion surges through.

However, she eventually forces herself to eat another insect through much motivation, and it's even worse than the first. She can't bring herself to eat another one, and she feels she just has to endure through the pain.

The sun beats down on her, heating up her wounds, worsening the pain. Her feet stinging walking on the hot rock paths. Clothed with only a loincloth and a fiber wrap around her chest, she is fairly exposed to the elements. All she sees are bushes and pebbles of rocks. Scattered branches. She isn't quite sure how to clothe herself, and not sure what to do. She knows she had to do something about her feet at least. She gets some fiber from the bushes and she makes some makeshift sandals and hand wraps. Making a bandage around her wrists as well to staunch the blood from the dirty nails with a branch as a tourniquet.

She walks down the path a bit longer and runs into her first sign of danger. A giant bat feasting on a human corpse. Spread out, gutted, and decomposing. She feels a great sense of dread and revulsion. She takes a few steps back as the bat turns around and screeches at Valyrie as it flies away into the horizon. Valyrie sighs with relief that she doesn't have to face the beast, and hopes she never will if the dead body is anything to go by.

She's never seen a real bat before, let alone a giant bat. She turns away at first at the sight of the body, and then turns around again when she sees the unfortunate soul has clothes, but it's all tattered and bloody. It wouldn't provide the right protection against the sun, so she continues on her journey down the beaten path as her stomach turns at the sight of weathered skeletons on display on pikes along the road to certain death.

Finally, after what feels like hours, she finds her first sign of civilization. An oasis in the desert. But before she can celebrate, she finds creatures. They look like turtles on all fours, and young walking around. And some trying to walk. She hides behind a rock as she peeks her head up from over the cover and sees water. The sight of it reinvigorates her spirit after a long and dreadful trek. However, she has to get past the creatures. And she has very little cover.

She doesn't know if they're aggressive or friendly, but the bat didn't encourage confidence. She has water and food as well, though she doesn't have anything to harvest them with. She doesn't even know if they're poisonous.

Valyrie regrets not having an astute knowledge of survival when it comes to her current situation, but she has an idea. She takes a chunk of pebbles and wraps them in some leaves and twigs. She finishes crafting and as she does, a baby comes by her cover and as they make eye contact, the little one trots away as she hears a roar from behind. She doesn't feel like changing against the grown up, so she makes a mad dash towards the little one, snatches him up and carries it in her arms as she makes a beeline for the pool.

The giant turtles all chase after her, and she only hopes that they can't swim like other turtles do. She leaps into the water and finds its deeper than expected. As she comes up for air, she also discovers it's very cold. She shouts in pain, but also utmost relief with being hydrated once more. She almost forgets about the baby wiggling around in her arms, and then she turns around to see the parents standing at shore, shrieking at her as they go back to where they were before.

The baby slowly starts to calm down as it starts to drown, and then he dies in her arms. Valyrie's muscles already ache, but keeping a baby in place only worsened it. Luckily now, she has two things she desperately needed. Food and water. But then another question remains. A campfire. She knows she won't be able to swim in this state, but she knows she can ty to find somewhere safe to gather some materials. She wanders around, now hydrated, but still weak and starved. And paranoid of what might come next. She runs into a cave but hesitated to go inside, wary of lies beyond. Afraid of the dark.

The shimmering crystals help to lighten the dark, but she is still afraid. Her nervous breathing doesn't quiten her presence, and it appears something might've taken notice. She hears a low growl, and it only starts a chain reaction. She hears dozens of other voices, and she looks behind her to make her way back out, only for something to tug at her. And then she looked back. Through the light of the surrounding crystals, she sees a disfigured face. A humanoid appearance. Significantly shorter. And empty eyes staring into hers. Valyrie kicks it aside as it tumbles down on its back, and then she sees even more of these monsters. She takes a crystal and jabs it into one of the monsters as blood bursts out. Then it explodes.

Valyrie turns away as blood and guts sprays the walls and her body, and more monsters keep coming. "Shit!" She shouts.

She makes her way out of the cave as she takes a crystal in her exit, hoping this will be enough to cause a spark to start a fire. She had hoped the sun would be enough to stop the monsters, but it isn't. In the sunlight, they don't look as intimidating, but more grotesque. Valyrie uses the baby she still has in her possession, and uses its shell to take out one of the imps. Surprisingly, they don't seem as bad. Then her mind switches back to the giant bat, and wonders what else there is in these Exiled Lands.

As she finds a spot to sit down and use her campfire, she finally has time to herself as the night starts to fall. The fire keeping her warm. She pulls her legs to her chest and thinking about what she's gone through in one day. And how this'll be her life now. Trapped in a land she doesn't know for something she doesn't know she did. Why is this happening to me? She thinks as her fighting spirit diminishes as she lets herself feel weak. Vulnerable.

She remembers what the mysterious man told her. That he's the only one that'd have saved her, meaning he was and will be the first and only kindness in these lands. But little does he know, what she is capable of.


	3. Chapter Three: Stranger

In the quiet of the night, Valyrie has time to reflect on her life. How it was before as her anger begins to reside for a moment. She lived a harsh life as a Cimmerian, hunting and foraging in the chilly highlands, killing wild animals bigger and faster than her to survive. Hardened to be a fighter. But she felt something while she was on that cross. Something she's felt too many times.

Helplessness. Fear. This time it felt like nothing she's ever endured before. For days, she was dying in the middle of nowhere. Nails in her wrists. Bleeding out. Not a soul in sight. Until someone finally saved her.

She can't get the mysterious rescuer out of her head. His name. Where he is. She has so many questions.

The baby only managed to satiate Valyrie's appetite for a short moment, and she has to get something more filling. Her mind then snaps to the waterskin the man gave her, and wonders if she can make her own. But first, she has to focus on food, and she needs a tool. One of them needs to be a torch. She gets some branches and plant fiber, starting a spark as she strikes it against the crystal she got earlier. As the torch is ignited, she hears something nearby. She stops for a moment and listens. She thinks it's a creature walking by, and she stands up and holds the torch up. She hears some footsteps against the grass. Quiet. Slow.

She steadies her breathing and hides behind a tree and grabs a big branch nearby and a pebble of stone, sharpening the branch with it. She doesn't have much time to craft something more effective, in case it happens to be a threat. She steps around the tree as it gets closer. She grips the branch tight, only to be greeted with one of the wandering creature she encountered earlier. She grips her branch and impales the creature in the throat as Valyrie listens to its dying breaths, the warm thick blood flowing out, coating her hand. As it slowly collapses to the ground, Valyrie gets ready to get some meat, only to be attacked from behind.

She shouts in pain as a stone javelin finds itself in her thigh. In the dark, she can't see the damage, but someone apparently can. It would have been a smart move to staunch her torch. Perhaps the attacker missed his intended location.

Valyrie can't tell where the attacker is, but she can hear him or her approaching. Valyrie isn't strong enough at the moment to remove the javelin out of her leg, and she feels it's only going to get worse. She fumbles around for her branch, and as she obtains it again, she turns around and readies herself to strike. Despite this, she's knocked down as a man ruthlessly pummels her, and Valyrie puts her arms up to protect her face. The man then grabs her arms and pins her down as he whispers, almost insidiously, "Man flesh!"

Through the light of her nearby torch, she sees the man's teeth, sharpened to points. Valyrie's stomach churns as she thinks about he's about to do. She struggles to get out, though the man is much stronger. She spits some blood in the man's eye, but this only angers the attacker. He keeps his iron grip on her, despite being blinded. He hisses and goes to bite down on her neck as she screams, though she counters this as she bites down on his ear as hard as she can.

The man rolls to his side as he clasps his ear, grunting as he grabs something from his nap sack. A knife. Valyrie rolls to her side as the man prepares to strike down, but the javelin stuck in her leg hinders her. The man steps on Valyrie's chest as he swiftly and carelessly pulls the projectile out of her leg, and gets ready to impale her. Valyrie has to think fast. So she grabs the knife the man used and stabs him in the leg, then she pulls it out and stabs him again.

The man collapses to one knee, clasping his leg as blood pours out. Furious, the man grips his javelin and almost cuts the side of her temple as she rolls to her side. She gets on her good knee as she grips the knife and gets ready to strike, though her weapon is much shorter, she imagines she'll get impaled first, but she isn't stopoing now. The man grunts angrily and Valyrie scowls him.

He thrusts his weapon forward, aiming for the heart. She holds the knife against the stone as it grazes along the side of it, grabbing it and then using her weapon to stab him in the throat. The man grunts and winces as he feels the pain, but it's as if something is rendering him nigh invincible. The man whispers something, but Valyrie can't understand it.

She's frightened now, and the stranger grabs Valyrie's arm, pulls the knife out and twists her wrist. She shouts in pain as the knife falls to the ground. The man tries to use the knife and gut her, but she grabs the javelin now and stabs him through the throat again, shoving it in as far as she can this time. Making sure he's dead. She takes the knife and is about to stab him, but the stranger grabs her hand, shaking, and tries to force the weapon to her side. While she's busy trying to fight back, she then looks into his eyes. Void of anything. She's a little frightened by this, and lets her guard down for a moment, giving the man the leeway he needs to stab Valyrie in the abdomen.

While she grunts in pain, she takes the javelin and forces it in with what strength she might have left. As the two begin to lose more blood, their strength wanes, and the stranger is winning thus far. Valyrie grits her teeth as she pulls the javelin out to speed up the blood loss. She starts to feel her eyes getting heavy. Her body weakening. She feels herself fading in and out, and the next thing she knows, the man lies dead in a pool of blood.

Valyrie feels weak. Exhausted. Before she has a chance to accept fate, she sees some meat on the man's belt.

She winces as she crawls to the man's corpse, and takes the meat. As soon as she takes a bite, she feels a rush of fulfillment, and something else she can't explain. Something unpleasant. She then swears she heard a garbled voice nearby. She listens and waits for it to come again. Nothing.

She doesn't know the cause or the reason, but she goes back with cutting up the creature she killed earlier, and puts it over the campfire, keeping the meat from the stranger handy. Then she hears that voice again. Clearer this time. She almost swore she heard it say her name. The voice sends chills down her spine, even colder after her name was announced. The voice sounded evil.

She's on edge now, but she tries to steel herself to stay on guard despite the draining experience her day has been so far. As she cooks the meat, she lies her head on the hard ground, trying to get comfortable.

She's killed countless wildlife to survive, but never another human. She's a little shaken, but she doesn't let it get the better of her. She tries to take her mind off of it. Focusing on her plan in the morning. Tools. Build some sort of house. Weapons. Another torch. Getting clothed. More food. Then she can focus on rest as she forces herself to stay awake, staying as alarm as she can. But though she makes an effort to focus elsewhere, the mysterious voice haunts her, second guessing whether or not it actually said her name. And what else it knows.


End file.
